SPLEEN is the personal blog of Stephen Judd

All posts tagged "sleep"

Kathy is away in Christchurch for the week. I have been left to my own devices. (Pretend I made a hilarious pun on "device" here, involving computers).

It turns out that social cues from others are an important part of my ability to get to bed on time. Worse, the cat misses Kathy, and is waking super-early and super-yowly. I am a zombie.

Perhaps it was this that made me especially disorientated yesterday as I walked on to the street at lunchtime. There is a stereo shop right next to our building exit, and they were playing some dance track or other. In the distance a car alarm was going, and coincidentally, it was timed perfectly on the half-beat. My tinnitus was at an appropriate pitch, and for a few moments, I was in the middle of my own organic sound track.

You know how sometimes you just can't catch a break? That's been me and a good night's sleep for days and days and days now. I'm tucked in early, no caffeine, no booze, with a clean conscience and a carefree mind, and still waking up multiple times for long periods. Most times when I've been woken there's been a reason—something electronic going bleep, overactive digestion, a storm—but I'm getting a bit sick of it now. I actually didn't sleep too badly last night, but I think I'm going to have to catch up over several nights before I'm back to normal. What reserves of creativity I have left have been expended on the other channel.

So that's why things have been a bit quiet.

In the meanwhile, I photographed this sign.

I was all set to be superior and laugh, because in my lexicon "despatch" is reserved for execution. But Kathy, backed up by the OED, points out that it is a mere alternative spelling, and the execution sense is the 3rd or 4th meaning given, which makes that a pointlessly subtle joke.

Way to ruin my fun, Kathy and the OED. But I'm still tickled by the notion of a security firm that responds to callouts by shooting its staff.